A Window Opens

How Kamala Harris could earn the support of Americans by waging an energetic campaign against corporate criminals like Trump.

The past 48 hours have ushered in a historic shift in a presidential race with undeniable consequence for the world. 

The Democrats suddenly appear as if they will have a nominee capable of waging a vigorous campaign. Not a moment too late, as they now face a ticket which includes a self-proclaimed economic populist, JD Vance. And while it is true that Peter Thiel created and Elon Musk staked JD Vance with what Harold Meyerson called “the biggest dowry in human history”—Musk alone is committing $45 million a month, which other tech and crypto titans are chipping in millions here and there—Harris and the Democratic Party are obviously not without their own entanglements with the oligarch class. (In the Supreme Court’s post-Citizens United world, this truth is obviously not too surprising.)

And so Harris is in need of a message that is plausible and in keeping with our populist moment of widespread discontent. A message that can position her as standing against the forces of corporate greed that keep rent and prices high while working to thwart climate progress and labor power alike. Donald Trump is a convicted criminal. He is ​​a shady real estate developer and former slumlord. The most logical, therefore, for Kamala Harris is to be vocal and enthusiastic about wielding the law against white collar crooks like him.

A Presidential Candidate Needs to Pick Fights

Over the past few years, we have consistently been critical of White House comms staff and senior advisors’ conflict-averse approach to communicating about the Biden administration’s notable efforts to rein in many of America’s worst corporations. We have urged the White House to pick fights and make enemies; to signal to the American people that it was fighting hard on their behalf. 

We’ve called out members of President Biden’s inner circle whose corporate ties and sensibilities undercut the best of Biden’s economic populist bonafides, including figures like long-time advisor and “corporate spin doctor” Anita Dunn, and multimillionaire chief of staff Jeff Zients. But as has become clear in the past few weeks, having a presidential candidate who can’t coherently and persuasively speak to those efforts is also a significant limitation to waging a winning campaign. That limitation no longer applies. There are urgent fights to be picked against corporate greed and exploitation, and we now have a presidential candidate in Kamala Harris who’s capable of bringing them. 

A presidential candidate needs to say not only popular but provocative things that compel attention and feedback, generating an ongoing story. President Biden has been too fragile to seek out narrative shifting conflict, even as he admirably hired people at the National Labor Relations Board, Federal Trade Commission, U.S. Trade Representative, and elsewhere who are actively fighting against corporate malefactors. Kamala Harris can and should embrace rhetorical battle with the worst corporate America has on offer. 

Harris As Spokesperson For A Corporate Crackdown

In fall 2023, our Emma Marsano argued over several pieces that Kamala Harris is well-suited to craft populist narratives to drive voter support, while laying out a roadmap for actual policies that would benefit her base, using our corporate crackdown framework. 

As we’ve long asserted, cracking down on corporate wrongdoing using existing enforcement powers within the executive branch is both good governance and good politics. It’s good governance because holding the rich and powerful accountable for extracting resources from the public and poisoning people and the planet should be the role of the people’s elected representatives. And it’s good politics because as countless polls show, voters know that corporations are ripping them off and they’re sick of it. (The Supreme Court and its right-wing backers are doing everything they can to weaken the capacity of the executive branch to regulate and enforce laws against powerful corporations; a strong Harris campaign strategy could include promising to rein in this judicial power grab.) 

Picking public fights with corporate villains like the oil, banking, and real estate executives propelling climate change and driving up the cost of living to line their own pockets, while pursuing popular litigation to back up crackdown threats, is a strong political strategy that would meaningfully benefit voters. 

As Emma argued last year, Harris is uniquely well positioned within the executive branch and within this political moment to spearhead a corporate crackdown, both as current VP and as the party’s prospective presidential nominee. She has enjoyed notable moments of popularity and support throughout her career, particularly at moments when she has picked fights against powerful targets—including leading the fight to shut down the predatory for-profit Corinthian Colleges and forcing banks to offer debt relief to mortgage-holders as California’s Attorney General. She was also lauded for her active role in now-justice Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearings as a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, shortly preceding her quick ascent from junior senator to Vice Presidential candidate. 

Harris’ record also lends itself particularly well to direct comparisons with Trump, an important factor heading into an assuredly nasty election season. Harris has prosecuted for-profit colleges; Trump created one. Harris investigated Big Oil; Trump invited them to bribe him. She said it herself in a tweet the last time she sought her party’s presidential nomination: 

A return to that confrontational style would benefit Harris in this moment. Highlighting her willingness to crack down on wrongdoing by powerful people and corporations, while positioning Trump as emblematic of such corporate greed and harmful behavior, would be a strong driving logic for Harris’ presidential run—and would set her up well to make populist policies from her first day in office. 

Going Up Against Corporate Power Is Good Politics

Over the past three and half years, Lina Khan and Jonathan Kanter, Biden’s antitrust leadership at the FTC and DOJ, have radically transformed their agencies from sleepy, corporate-captured bureaucracies into aggressive and creative regulators. 

Their sharp rebukes of corporate power have spread to other parts of the administration, including spurring Pete Buttigieg and the Department of Transportation to stand up to airline monopolies. Biden’s trust busters have caused huge problems for the most powerful corporations of our time, including Big Tech, and accordingly, their work has proven highly salient with voters. 68 percent of Americans view large corporations negatively. As of 2023, 69 percent of Americans regardless of party designation support stronger antitrust laws. As our colleague Jacob put it, “the right thing to do – regulating large corporations in order to benefit working class people – is also the popular thing to do.”

Biden’s legacy on antitrust is not just appointing effective leaders. His actions helped cement the entire Democratic Party’s move away from the Silicon Valley coziness that marked the Obama era. Meanwhile, Silicon Valley has found its home on the other ticket, loudly announcing their allegiance to and financial support of Trump. With JD Vance’s ties to Peter Thiel and other tech billionaires undermining his supposed economic populist outlook, Harris would do better to force her Republican opponents to choose between populist posturing and their corporate donors, rather than ceding the potent motivator of economic anger to her opponents.

This leads us to what we see as Harris’s best course of action: doubling down on the corporate accountability successes of the Biden administration, and promising to continue the work. She could leverage her prosecutorial background to give weight to calls to crack down on corporate lawbreakers like rental market price-fixer RealPage. She could go after Big Oil for the devastating climate impacts of its decades of misinformation and deceit. She could amplify the work of Jennifer Abruzzo, the Biden-Harris administration’s General Counsel at the National Labor Relations Board, a public servant who merits much greater attention and appreciation for her smart and energetic reinvigoration of labor law.

The possibilities are expansive and exciting.

She doesn’t need new legislation to get started. What Biden can focus on for the rest of his presidency, and what Harris can commit to do in hers, is enforce existing laws to protect the public. Even up against a radical slate of right-wing judges dedicated to undermining the power of the executive branch to help everyday Americans, it’s imperative that executive branch leaders don’t preemptively concede the fight. To be clear, there’s a lot that’s broken about our current system that needs fixing. But we can choose to harness the surging energy of this moment, and set ourselves on a path to building the power we need.